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Technology Stocks : i2 Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SecularBull who wrote (2136)	1/9/2002 10:46:35 AM
From: SecularBull	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2339

i2 boosts India investment BANGALORE, Jan 9 (Reuters) - U.S. business-to-business software maker i2 Technologies Inc plans to invest up to $20 million in India over two years to boost product development and cut global costs, the head of its Indian unit said. Texas-based i2, whose software helps firms manage inventories and purchases, will shift 150 U.S.-based employees to India by the end of this month, R. Swaminathan, managing director of i2 Technologies India Pvt Ltd, told Reuters in an e-mail reply to questions. ``The goal is to have 50 percent development work done out of the U.S. and 50 percent done in India,'' he said. Between 17 and 20 percent of i2's global software development work is being done by the 1,000-strong Indian unit which is adding staff and expanding infrastructure. Like i2, many slowdown-hit technology firms like IBM (NYSE:IBM - news), Oracle (NasdaqNM:ORCL - news) and Sun Microsystems (NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) have turned to India's cost-efficient engineers to develop software. Founded by Indian-born Sanjiv Sidhu, i2, an early leader in supply chain software to manage raw materials, now brings buyers and sellers together online. It posted a $5.53 billion net loss in its July-September third quarter and revenues fell 39 percent year-on-year. The firm's shares closed at $8.8 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday. I2's chief executive officer Gregory Brady told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that corporate technology spending had begun to recover after shrinking for the better part of 2001. Asia, which historically accounts for about 12 to 15 percent of group revenues, is i2's fastest-growing market, Brady said. Swaminathan said India was always a key source of workers for i2. The company, which said last October that it would slash 1,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its workforce, planned many cost cutting initiatives including an invitation to its software development staff to shift to India. ``The voluntary relocation programme was being planned for quite some time. It was just accelerated because of the recent economic conditions,'' Swaminathan said.